Eighth Circle

Liala had found her man and Crispin was growing up fast. His attitude towards life would change for the better following the operation to restore the reptilian influences of his inner mammalian brain. Girls would never again be the same for Crispin.

The sun reached the horizon and Tom felt the sense of otherworldliness that he had experienced on previous inter-realm journeys. The time-between-times had arrived. In the brief period between day and night, the boundaries between realms blurred and it was possible to travel between them.

Circles of light appeared around the whirlpools. The gateways were open. Tom looked up and saw three figures on the cliff above his head. They were bathed in a ghostly yellow light and carried shining staffs. He had seen them before. They were the gatekeepers and they were meant to control the pathways between realms.

Balduur had great faith in them. He believed they would prevent the guardians from making any unauthorised trip. Tom didn't share Balduur's confidence. As far as he was concerned, the gatekeepers were bungling idiots. On his first inter-realm journey a young woman sneaked into the Seventh Circle, when the gatekeepers weren't looking, and went to the Seventh Realm with him.

It looked as if the guardians were going to do something similar. They had pulled up their anchor and were heading for the Sixth Circle. The gateway to the Sixth Realm was open and the gatekeepers weren't doing anything to prevent an unauthorised journey. Instead, they were arguing.

Their voices came and went in the wind. A boyish voice was calling someone a silly old fool and a much older voice was telling him to show more respect for his betters. Then a third voice boomed out and told the pair to shut up.

Tom guessed it belonged to the bigger of the three gatekeepers. He had the build of a warrior and carried his staff as if it were a weapon. He pointed it at the guardians' boat and a voice like thunder shook the air.

'Who dares violate the holy circle?'

It echoed back and forth.

'Who dares transgress the sacred pathways?'

His staff jabbed down at the guardians.

'What abominations seek to voyage between realms?'

The tirade continued and the guardians stared back in shocked amazement. Tom guessed they were greatly offended by the outburst. For over three centuries, no one had ever spoken to them like that without receiving a visit from the death trolls.

'Answer now or die.'

The guardians replied with a salvo of shots from their ray guns. Bushes burst into flames and rocks tumbled from the cliff face. Tom shielded his eyes and saw the gatekeepers striding through the blaze of light like apparitions in a furnace. They came together at the cliff edge and directed their staffs at the guardians' boat.